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Monday, February 22, 2010

Shooting Games

History Of Shooting Games


Definition

Shooting games are games in which the player fires a weapon at a target. Many shooting games utilize the role of first-person shooter (FPS), where the player isn't represented by a figure on the screen. Rather, the screen represents what the player's character sees within the game. There are many free online shooting games as well as more advanced games designed for consoles as well as the online MMORPG communities.
Shooting games draw their background from shooting sports, which go back for centuries. Shooting clubs date back to the 13th and 14th centuries in German. In the U.S. the first shooting games were rifle competitions called "turkey shoots" that took place in the early 1800s.WashingtonPost.com: The History of Shooting Sports (1995) The first FPS games had their debut in 1974 Maze War and Spasim both had their debut that year,but because documentation is slacking, it isn't certain which one actually came first.

First Person Shooter

The first-person shooter (FPS) sub-genre offers a particularly visceral experience by letting you jump right into the action from the perspective of a game character. Perhaps no other genre is as capable of drawing you into the game world, whether it’s putting you in the middle of the epic battles of World War II, the modern-day Middle-East, or the far reaches of outer space.

FPS & TPS Shooting Games

Prepare yourself for an intense, over-the-top experience in a wide range of action-packed shooting games from Electronic Arts. Shooting games make up one of the most popular genres in gaming with millions of titles sold annually to gamers of all ages from pre-teens and up.

Guns Blazing Online

You can get even more out of your shooting game experience by going online via Xbox LIVE or the PlayStation Network for PS3 where you can jump into one of the several online-only gaming modes, including Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch, and others. Some shooter games even track statistics so you can see how stack up against the best of the best from around world.

A Rich History of Shooting Games

Electronic Arts has a storied history of shooting games, including its trendsetting and award-winning Medal of Honor and Battlefield franchises. Both franchises are still going strong and have been joined more recently by a host of other gripping and engaging FPS games.

Each EA shooter game provides a level of authenticity or historical accuracy not found anywhere else, whether it’s storming the beaches of Normandy or going to battle in exotic locations like a war-torn Venezuela. Shooter games typically include a massive arsenal of weapons to help keep the game fresh and exciting and your enemy on their toes.

Guns Blazing Online

Most shooting games are rated T for Teen due to Blood, Language, and/or Violence. Be sure to check the ESRB for specific game ratings and descriptor information. Upcoming shooting games from Electronic Arts include new entries in the Battlefield and Medal of Honor franchises, plus a new episode in the Dead Space saga.
You can get even more out of your shooting game experience by going online via Xbox LIVE or the PlayStation Network for PS3 where you can jump into one of the several online-only gaming modes, including Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch, and others. Some shooter games even track statistics so you can see how stack up against the best of the best from around world.

Early first person shooters: 1970s and 1980s
The earliest two documented first-person shooters were Maze War and Spasim. Maze War features on-foot gameplay that evokes modern first-person shooter games. Development of the game began in 1973 and its exact date of completion is unknown. Spasim had a documented debut at the University of Illinois in 1974. The game was a rudimentary space flight simulator, which featured a first-person perspective. Spasim led to more detailed combat flight simulators and eventually to a tank simulator, developed for the U.S. army, in the later 1970s. These games were not available to consumers and it was not until 1980 that a tank game, Battlezone, was released in arcades. A version was released in 1983 for home computers, the first successful mass-market game featuring a first-person viewpoint and 3D graphics.

MIDI Maze was an early first-person shooter released in 1987 for the Atari ST. It was unique in featuring network multiplayer through the MIDI interface long before mainstream Ethernet and Internet play became commonplace. It is considered the first multiplayer 3D shooter on a mainstream system and the first major network multiplayer action game, with support for as many as 16 players. It was followed up by ports to various platforms in 1991 under the title Faceball 2000, including the Game Boy and Super NES, making it possibly the first handheld and multiplatform first-person shooter and an early console example of the genre.

Id Software released Hovertank 3D in 1991, which pioneered ray casting technology to enable faster gameplay than 1980s vehicle simulators. Later developers added texture mapping with Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (by Looking Glass Technologies), a role-playing game featuring a first person viewpoint and an advanced graphics engine, released in 1992. During development, this led to Catacomb 3-D which was actually released first, in late 1991, and introduced the display of the protagonist's hand and weapon (magical spells) on the screen.


Rise in popularity: 1992–1995
Wolfenstein 3D (created by id Software and released in 1992) was an instant success and is generally credited with inventing the first person shooter genre proper. It built on the ray casting technology pioneered in earlier games to create a revolutionary template for shooter game design, which first person shooters are still based upon today. Despite the violent themes, it largely escaped the controversy generated by the later Doom, although it was banned in Germany due to the use of Nazi iconography; the Nintendo version replaced the enemy attack dogs with giant rats. Apogee Software, the publisher of Wolfenstein 3D, followed up its success with Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold in 1993. The game was initially well received but sales rapidly declined in the wake of the success of id's Doom, released a week later. Doom, released as shareware in 1993, refined Wolfenstein 3D's template by adding improved textures, variations in height (such as stairs the player's character could climb) and lighting effects such as flickering lights and patches of total darkness, creating a more believable 3D environment than Wolfenstein 3D's repetitive levels. Doom allowed competitive matches between multiple players, termed "deathmatches", and the game was responsible for the word's subsequent entry into the video gaming lexicon. The game became so popular that its multiplayer features began to cause problems for companies whose networks were used to play the game. Doom has been considered the most important first person shooter ever made: it was highly influential not only on subsequent shooter games but on video gaming in general, and has been available on almost every video gaming system since. Multiplayer gaming, which is now integral to the first person shooter genre, was first achieved successfully on a large scale with Doom. While its combination of gory violence, dark humor and hellish imagery garnered acclaim from critics, these attributes also generated controversy from religious groups, with other commentators labelling the game a "murder simulator." There was further controversy when it emerged that the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre were fans of the game; the families of several victims later unsuccessfully attempted to sue id Software, among numerous other video game companies, claiming they inspired the massacre.

Bungie Studios released its first FPS, titled Pathways into Darkness in 1993 for the Mac, shortly after Wolfenstein 3D. It laid the groundwork for the highly successful Marathon trilogy which began in 1994. Marathon pioneered many FPS features, including secondary weapons functions, a free look camera, and aiming in the vertical dimension. It also featured a network multiplayer mode.

Star Wars: Dark Forces was released in 1995 after LucasArts decided Star Wars would make appropriate material for a game in the style of Doom; however, Star Wars: Dark Forces added several technical features that Doom lacked, such as the ability to crouch or look up and down. Descent, (released by Parallax Software in 1995) a game in which the player pilots a spacecraft around caves and factory ducts, was the first truly three dimensional first person shooter. It abandoned sprites and ray casting and introduced polygons and six degrees of freedom. Apogee's Duke Nukem 3D, released in 1996, was the last successful sprite-based first person shooter, winning acclaim for its humor based around stylised machismo as well as its gameplay; however some found the game's (and later the whole series') treatment of women to be derogatory and tasteless.

Arrival of 3D graphics: 1996–1999
Shortly after the release of Duke Nukem 3D, id Software released the much anticipated Quake, which used 3D polygons instead of sprites. Like Doom, Quake was influential and genre-defining, featuring fast paced, gory gameplay. It was centered around online gaming and featured multiple match types still found in first person shooter games today. It was the first game to have a following of clans, attracted increased modification and expanded the market for video card hardware.


The first landmark, best-selling console first-person shooter was Rare's GoldenEye 007, based on the James Bond film and released on the Nintendo 64 in 1997. Highly acclaimed for its atmospheric single-player levels and well designed multiplayer maps, it featured the ability to aim at a precise spot on the screen, a sniper rifle, the ability to perform headshots, and the incorporation of stealth elements.

Released in 1998, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six started a popular trend of tactical first person shooters, though it was not the first of its kind. It featured a team-based, realistic design and themes based around counter-terrorism, requiring missions to be planned before execution and in it, a single hit was enough to kill a character. Medal of Honor, released in 1999, started a long running proliferation of first person shooters set during World War II.

Valve's Half-Life was released in 1998. Initially met with only mild anticipation, it went on to become an unprecedented commercial success. While previous first person shooters had focused on visceral gameplay with comparatively weak plots, Half-Life had a strong narrative; the game featured no cut scenes but remained in the first person perspective at all times. It featured innovations such as non-enemy characters but did not employ power-ups. Half-Life was acclaimed for its artificial intelligence, set of weapons and attention to detail and, along with its sequel Half-Life 2 (released in 2004), is consistently reviewed as one of finest examples of the genre.

Starsiege: Tribes, also released in 1998, was a multiplayer online shooter allowing more than 32 players in a single match. It featured team-based gameplay with a variety of specialized roles, and an unusual jet pack feature. The game was highly popular and later imitated by games such as the Battlefield series. Id's Quake III Arena and Epic's Unreal Tournament, both released in 1999, were popular for their frenetic and accessible online multiplayer modes; both featured very limited single player gameplay. Counter-Strike was also released in 1999, a Half-Life modification with a counter-terrorism theme. The game and later versions (the latest being Counter-Strike Source, released in 2004) went on to become by far the most popular multiplayer first person shooters.

Recent milestones: 2000–present

At the E3 game show in 1999, Bungie unveiled a real-time strategy game called Halo; at the following E3, an overhauled third-person shooter version was displayed. Later in 2000 Bungie was bought by Microsoft, and Halo was revamped and released as a first person shooter, one of the launch titles for the Xbox console. It was a runaway critical and commercial success, and is considered a premier console first person shooter. It featured narrative and storyline reminiscent of Bungie's earlier Marathon series but now told largely through in-game dialog and cut scenes. It also received acclaim for its characters, both the protagonist, Master Chief and its alien antagonists. The sequel, Halo 2 (2004), brought the popularity of online-gaming to the console market through the medium of Xbox Live, on which it was the most played game for almost two years. Deus Ex, released by Ion Storm in 2000, featured a levelling system similar to that found in role-playing games; it also had multiple narratives depending on how the player completed missions and won acclaim for its serious, artistic style. Metroid Prime, released in 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube, another highly praised console first person shooter, incorporated action adventure elements such as jumping puzzles and built on the Metroid series of 2D platformers.

Battlefield 1942, a World War II shooter released in 2002, featured large scale battles incorporating aircraft, naval vessels, land vehicles and infantry combat. In 2003, Planetside allowed hundreds of players at once to compete in a persistent world, and was promoted as the world's first massively multiplayer online first person shooter. Doom 3, released in 2004, placed a greater emphasis on horror and frightening the player than previous games in the series and was a critically acclaimed best seller, though some commentators felt it lacked gameplay substance and innovation, putting too much emphasis on impressive graphics. In 2005, a film based on Doom emulated the viewpoint and action of a first person shooter, but was critically derided as deliberately unintelligent and gratuitously violent. Bioshock was acclaimed by some commentators as the best game of 2007 for its artistry, narrative and innovation. Crysis (2007) and Far Cry 2 (2008) broke new ground in terms of graphics and large, open-ended level design, whereas Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007), its sequel Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009), Resistance: Fall of Man (2006) and its sequel Resistance 2 (2008) presented increasingly refined linear levels and narratives. As of 2006, in terms of revenue for publishers, the first person shooter was one of the biggest and fastest growing video game genres.

2 comments:

gamaza said...

Shooting games demand a huge degree of dedication, discipline and focus.

sniper games

Unknown said...

Online shooting games can really be addictive especially among teens. When I subscribed to an Australian broadband service provider, I immediately advised my kids on how to play moderately. :)

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